Han Bing and friends, Art Basel, Miami, 2006/photographer unknown

I wrote my first poem after participating in poetry as a “good audience member” by attending the performances of  friends who were poets.  I was sharpening my ear for a style of poetry writing I prefer–work written to be performed rather than for the page. In celebration of National Poetry Month for this month’s Artcards Review,  I returned to earlier work which was inspired by interdisciplinary approaches to life, living, and learning–Expatriate Recommends Diaspora and the accompanying photograph is the result of those forces–transcribing an interview about its subject, Anthony Xavier Edwards, for artist Nathalie Latham, whom I met at Paris Photo in 2006 formed the content for the poem.  Later that year, I arrived at Art Basel, Miami, met artist Han Bing and his wife Maya Kovskaya (right of Han) pictured above, learned about his performance piece which become part of the movement “walking the cabbage”, and also learned of their friendship with Nathalie.  Poetry creates community and rewards minds with the imagination to see that everything signifies and that everything connects.

Expatriate Recommends Diaspora

Now Tony, dear, what do you call yourself?

Enthused, confused, stunned, besotted…and a designer

Anthony Xavier Edwards, unlikely fashion star, moves to Shanghai from down under

Ensconced to the Bund by postage stamp, envelope sealed by Yves Saint Laurent

Tony loved his Australia, then left it

~~~

Do it, but, where? Do it, but, where?

Pack the tuxedo, treat the crème one with care

Ooze north with glamour, oh aren’t you fab

Design a restaurant? Sure, take a stab

Line China with cashmere

Your office with mirrors

Find the modern in the erhu

Minus the tears

Press the chairman for his email

You want to scatter your seeds

Feng shui for the Wall

Will it include beads?

First, headline failures

Think turbine engine tour

You wanted appreciation

Damn Australia, it’s a bore

Next, wool deal goes awry

Valise emptied of money

Stripped to your tee

Terribly unfunny

Soon there were scarves for Hillary

the dressing of Chinese King Tuts

Costumes for the orchestra

lace and tailoring and fine hautes

~~~

It ended all “prêt-a-porter”

“Nothing’s better than you” he’d say

and “That’s not ego

but confidence

I pray”

Photographs Not Taken

There are the photographs not taken

An aged, elegant couple
sitting on a 5th Avenue park bench just north of the Met
matching blue-tinted eyeglasses
serenity in their long couple-hood
a “biopic” of quiet seated before the volta

A widow living in a tenement built by Mussolini
tending to a crude distillery housed in a Mussolini granted garage
the quiet drip drip drip of slivovica welcoming visitors to sit
in the deplaned seats of the now defunct Jugoslavenski Aerotransport
Wearing a stained, but clean apron
this simple, yet noble woman, is unknowingly part of an image
solely recorded by grey matter

A recently slaughtered calf hangs from a hook on the ceiling of a farmer’s work room
slowly dripping its blood in anticipation of the butchering
Tiny raised glasses of herb-infused liqueurs toast the beast
foreshadowing the soon to be prepared tripe, stews and soups

And the pic formed by a talented, but short-sighted gallerist in a town house gallery
standing before walls once rioted with iconoclastic works
most resting in storage now, unseen, unaccompanied, and increasingly
unremarkable with their exile
Clean white crew neck T-shirt over standard Levi blue jeans
a nod to basic good taste and handsomeness
minus the scarred belly clothes would later hide

Untaken photographs, but photographs nonetheless.

Gabriella Radujko

http://modernartswriting.wordpress.com/